The Daily News. FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1916. AFTER THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1916. AFTER THE WAR.

The discussion between members of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Trade, at New Plymouth yesterday, on post-war trade, was interesting. The trend of the views of the local men was that severance of trade relations with the enemy Powers was hardly practicable, it being maintained that tiic majority of people would buy in the cheapest market, irrespective of the country wherein the goods were manufactured. One speaker said he had no confidence in the British citizen's patriotism in buying British goods. Another allowed we could not do without certain of the lines manufactured by the Germans. It was shown that goods of

enemy origin were now coming in via neutral countries, especially from America, and sold as the product of America or other neutral countries, As the chairman of the Board (Mr. McDonald) observed, the question presents two aspects, Imperial and local. The first will be decided by the Imperial Conference, on which British statesmen have promised the Dominions will be represented, and the other is a matter for the Dominions to determine. What decision the Conference will come tQ no one at this stage can say, but the nation will demand that the representatives at that conference shall not view the subject from its commercial and economic aspects only, but that they shall bear in mind the more important considerations of national safety and the future of the Empire—and of the world. We cannot have a repetition of the mistakes of the past, for which we are now paying such a fearful price. Trade conditions must be subordinated to national safety. A big section of the commercial element will, no doubt, endeavor to induce Britain to resume trade relations with Germany. They can already be heard advocating the wiping of the slate after the war, obliterating all the bitter memories of the struggle, forgetting all the colossal sacrifices in life and money we have made. The hand of fellowship is to be stretched out to a people who, in the words of a well-known writer, "are convicted of a ghastly series of 'Wholesale murders by sea and land which stand unparalleled in the darkest pages of the history of the world." In other words, the business door is to be opened wide instantly the blood-stained hands of Germany are heard knocking, and the old relationships between the Hun? ami ourselves and the rest of humanity arc to be resumed as though the war, ivitli all its suffering, its agon}', and its horrors, had never been. Why ? toim.idy to make money out of the Germaiio or to convenience ourselves, It is. hoped

the Imperial Conference will deal with the matter boldly and determinedly. Germany stands convicted of the greatest crime of the ages. Until she expiates that crime, until the devilish spirit that has actuated her policy for the past forty years is extirpated, she is not a fit country with which to have relations, commercial, financial or social. She is being taught a lesson on the battlefields of Europe now; another les■•.on must also be taught her afterwards in the economic field. She must he outlawed until the cancer within her is rooted out. Then, and not till then, can we treat her as a. country fit to associate with. Political economists and representatives of trading interests will, of course, tell us that it is quite impossible to outlaw a nation of seventy millions. The public should remember that the same people assured us before the war Mat there never would be another war between the Great Powers owing to their financial and commercial interests being so interwoven and the countries being so inter-dependent. The watchwords for our statesmen in deciding the after-the-war policy should be, "Security first, trade second." The publie will never, allow the old order—"trade first, security second''—to prevail again. The price paid will have been too heavy. It is not a question of viiulictiveness, or of revenge; it is a question of safeguarding the integrity of the Empire and the peace of the world. Compared with these, trading considerations are nothing. Difficulties in the carrying out of the policy there will be, no doubt; but they will be insignificant in comparison with the difficulties the Empire has already surmounted in this war.